Josh Kopelman

Managing Director of First Round Capital.

espite being coastally challenged (currently living in Philadelphia), Josh has been an active entrepreneur and investor in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while he was a student at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation – an Internet information company. In 1996, Infonautics went public on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Monthly Archives for 2010

Free Consulting

I was talking today with an entrepreneur making the rounds on Sand Hilll Road, and he said something that really made an impact on me. He said that the process of meeting with VCs
and pitching his business provided him with “free consulting from some
unbelievably smart and experienced people”. What a wonderful perspective! If
you approach the fundraising process with that mindset, even a VC rejection
adds value.

While I agree that successful entrepreneurs need to be
persistent and self-confident, there is a difference between being confident in
your business versus being unwilling to hear/accept different points of
view. With the right mindset,
entrepreneurs can view the fundraising process as a collaborative dialog,
rather than a pure “let me tell you how smart we are” exercise.